The Rams have put more of an emphasis on the running game in two of the last three weeks. They leaned heavily on Todd Gurley against the Bears in Week 11, running the ball 30 times with their tailbacks. Last week against the Cardinals, they handed it to their backs 29 times – partly due to the lopsided score and their need to milk the clock late.
Todd Gurley has been more of a focal point of the offense lately, too, which wasn’t the case earlier in the season when he wasn’t getting the ball much. Sean McVay chalked it up to him “not being an idiot” anymore, suggesting he was wrong for not utilizing Gurley more before.
Whatever the case may be, Jared Goff is happy to see the running game back at the forefront.
“He’s being hard on himself. I think we all want to get Todd involved as much as possible,” Goff said Wednesday. “I think these last couple of weeks we’ve seen that and good things tend to happen. He’s a great player for us and we want to give him the ball.”
When Gurley is running it well, the offense is more consistent and balanced. They don’t have to rely so heavily on Goff’s arm, which hasn’t led to good things this season. He benefits from an established ground game, too, saying it helps “a bunch.”
“Any time that you can run the ball well, you want to be able to open up the play-action and open up the dropback,” he said. “Our offense is built that way where if we run the ball well on first down, we get into second-and-manageable, we can do the stuff we want to do and stay ahead of the chains. I think you’ve seen in the past, when we’re operating at a high level is when we’re doing that and we need to continue to do it.”
The offensive line deserves some credit for the running game’s improvement, blocking better up front. This is something Goff pointed out, crediting “all 11” on the offensive side of the ball for getting the ship righted last week against Arizona.
He expects the Rams to continue running the ball the way they have and balancing out the offense. He and the coaches know what a player Gurley is, and using him to their advantage is something he hopes will continue.
“I think we just want to continue to establish the run, for sure,” he said. “I think that’s definitely part of what we want to do – always has been, always will be. He’s a big part of that and as long as he’s playing running back for us, I expect that to be the case. He’s doing a good job and I think he’s excited for it.”
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